There have only been two times I’ve liked Aquaman; as the hook-handed barbarian of the 1990’s and the Justice League cartoon, where he was so radically different from what we knew that he might as well have been a new character, and as the super-hammy Brian Blessed clone in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, where he embraces his inherent silliness with such passion that it’s infectious. Most versions of the character fit an unpleasant compromise between the two extremes, such as the recent “Trying Too Hard To Convince You He’s Not Lame” New 52 version

I’ve been a staunch supporter of Aquaman for years. There’s not a lot of super-hero characters who don’t have something redeeming about them, after all, and Aquaman is actually a pretty decent character when he’s done right.

The whole Atlantis is Boring trope always rubbed me the wrong way. People can’t relate to it? What’s so relateable about Westeros or Tattooine or Middle Earth? The stories told in those places could have been told underwater and they’d have been just as great.

I was always a Sub-Mariner guy–he was so interesting to me I didn’t bother buying any Aquaman comics at all. To me, a dime spent on him was a dime I could be spending on Namor. Going by the cartoons I’ve seen him appear in he’s got some decent stories under his belt, though.